Fight To The Limit - Misaki’s Last Chance

You are watching Fight To The Limit - Misaki’s Last Chance
Duration: 1453
Rating:

Astrobiology 2008 - Infotainment

You are watching Astrobiology 2008 - Infotainment
Duration: 390
Rating:

Japanese Scientists Unveil Life-Like Repliee R1 Robot, Designed Like Five Year Old

Japanese scientists from Osaka University have released their latest and most human robot to date in their long-standing Repliee series. This particular robot has caught major attention due to the amount of detail, somewhat actually disturbing, and advanced features the robot science team implemented.

Based on a real five-year-old Japanese girl, this machine is supposed to be the most human built to date.

The first reaction critics and admirers alike seemed to agree on is that the robot itself is a bit creepy. At the premiere for this machine, several people were concerned that the scientists seem to take time to actually put what appeared to be ‘crusted sleep’ in its eyes.

Aside from the questionable aesthetics, this advanced robot has sensors which will be developed so it may do very basic tasks for elderly and disabled. These tasks will eventually include object retrieval, locomotive assistance, holding conversation and providing entertainment.

This particular Repliee R-1 model uses a silicone based skin to achieve human texture and is a part of a series that includes the original Repliee Q1 and Repliee Q2 (Ando-san) models, as reviewed below.

All robots in this series are also being developed to include very human actions. Each robot is already programmed and designed to blink and breathe. Repliee Q2, the most advanced adult human female model, is being programmed to carry on basic and eventually complex conversation. The Japanese government is backing the robotic servant sector as it expects that within only 10 years, the robotic industry will reach a demand in excess of $10 billion USD.

Repliee Q1 Robot

Repliee Q2 Robot (Ando-san)

Genius and Madness of the Brain

Is it true that there is a thin line between genius and madness?

From the kooky scientist maniacally laughing in his laboratory to the schizophrenic, socially inept math whiz, we’ve seen the plight of the mad genius played out in the media quite often.

New reports from scientists may unlock the alleged link between genius and madness with new discoveries on the gene DARPP-32.

According to the fresh study from the National Institutes of Health, three-fourths of people inherit a version of the DARPP-32 gene that optimizes the brain’s circuitry yet increases the risk for schizophrenia.

Specifically, the variant of this gene causes increased function within the prefrontal cortex of your brain, which allows increased processing, circuit activation and filtering of information. Interestingly enough, it now seems this same genetic variant which causes increased mental abilities may be associated with the cognitive impairment and disturbances common to schizophrenia.

According to Dr. Lindenberg, who reported on this study, “DARPP-32 shapes and controls the circuit between the human striatum and prefrontal cortex that affects key brain functions implicated in schizophrenia, such as motivation, working memory and reward related learning.”

By increasing cortex connectivity, the advantage of the gene variant is clear as it can provide increased memory ability, problem solving and mental control. This advantage, it seems, can backfire if the prefrontal cortex is impaired as seen in schizophrenia.

According to Dr. Weinberger of the research team, “…If other genes and environmental events conspire to render the cortex incapable of handling such information, it could backfire, resulting in the neural equivalent of a superhighway to a dead-end.”

Worldwide, over 51 million people suffer from schizophrenia, which usually has an onset at a young age.

A few accomplished minds who have shown a tie in with schizophrenia include John Nash (Noble Prize mathematician, who the movie A Beautiful Mind is based upon), Eduard Einstein (son of Albert Einstein), Dr. James Watson’s son (documented DNA structure along with colleaugue Francis Crick), Jack Kerouac and more.
Sources1 2 3 4 5

Why Do People Cry, The Science Behind Your Tears

You’ve seen it all too often. Three seconds left in the big game. Your team is down and the play of the century is about to unfold, one to be used in epic boasts in bars for years to come. You were there, about to witness…and then boom! More quickly than Madden can deliver a blindingly obvious line, the wife pulls the plug and nags you to do chores.

A man weeps for times past of a bachelor’s life.

Of all animals, humans display a very unique range of emotion. While animals have the ability to produce tears, some aspects of crying may be unique to humans. Though the scientific study of crying still leaves many things unanswered and is quite complex, there are some basics and cool things to know on the subject.

In Soviet Russia, Tears Cry You!

Imagine taking a nice, long yawn. The simple mention of the yawn, and the mental image of taking a nice gulp of air, may have triggered you to actually yawn along with anyone sitting around you.

Though scientists feel that yawning may have both physiological and evolutionary aspects, as we yawn even before birth, there is an enigmatic behavioral aspect to the process. A similar perspective is given to aspects of crying.

We are naturally equipped to cry and produce tears. Tears are produced by the lacrimal gland, which is located in the outer, upper portion of each of your eyes. Upon release tears flow down the ocular surface of your eye and on to your tear ducts and nasolacrimal ducts. If you are sitting at a Kevin Federline and Shaquille O’Neill singing hour, your emotional tears will overwhelm your ducts and tears will flow down your cheek.

What’s The Point Of Tears?

The tears of villainy produced by a mocking Sean Connery cutting into the brigand Trebek about his mother are not the same, as say, the tears shed by a Susy Homemaker who is cutting into onions to place on her Garden Burger. Though the ethics of a villain and those who put vegetables on a veggie-burger may be similar, the tears produced in each case are distinctly different.

There are three types of tears produced by our eyes which are classified as basal, reflex and emotional (psychogenic) tears .

Basal tears, which are the primary tear, help keep the eye surface nice and moist. The chemical components of this tear class allow it to form an adherent, thin film over the eye to provide general protection and moisture.

Sometimes we may get things like dust or a pellet from a Red Ryder BB gun in the eye. We all make mistakes. Such irritants will induce the response of reflex tears. Reflex tears hold similarity to basal tears, but are distinct in having chemical components that more readily allow elimination of particles and irritants (like dust or onion vapors) and microorganisms.

The final class of tears, and the ones that produce many scientific questions, are emotional tears. Some studies and scientists indicate this class of tear, within humans, are different within males and females and also may have a distinct evolutionary origin and physiological purpose.

Certain chemicals may build-up when the body is under great stress. Studies have shown that proteins released in emotional tears are the same hormones associated with high stress. For instance, prolactin (protein associated with breastmilk production) and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) are both associated with emotional tears and also stress within the body.

Women tend to have higher prolactin levels, nearly double, than that of men and this may be why women cry a bit more easily when under stress. ACTH, often associated with the “sweating bullets” you see on a guy who has forgotten his anniversary or is pushing a deadline, is stress associated and released in emotional tears. Research shows that suppressing emotional tears may contribute to conditions such as hypertension and heart disease.

The most mysterious and enigmatic part of crying comes from the most recognized use of tears in today’s society; communication. At a funeral or during a sad event, cultural norm shows expressing sadness in tears is comforting and common. This seems to be an emotional response that covers many cultures. The same way adults use crying to show an emotional bond, babies and young children use crying (with associated tears) as a symbol of communication to show pain, hunger or perhaps hurt. The evolutionary and physiological aspect of the communication of crying, in humans and perhaps some animals, still has many points of consideration to explore.

Fun Fact: Why Do Onions Make You Cry?

We all know that onions make us tear up. The next time you are around someone who is cutting up an onion, impress them with your scientific knowledge.

Onions contain amino acid sulfoxides, which are a type of organic molecule. When you cut into the onion skin, allinases, a class of enzymes, mix with the sulfoxides to make sulfenic acid. Once exposed to oxygen in the air, the sulfenic acid arranges into the strong chemicals syn-propanethial-S-oxide and thiosulfinates, which cause tears and cause the strong smell of cut onion, respectively. It’s not the scent of the onion that makes you cry, but rather the syn-propanethial-S-oxide irritating the eye that makes you release reflex tears and cry. Since the chemical makes you cry it’s also called a lachrymator.

Sources 1 2 3

Giant Sea Spiders and Other Scary Ocean Creatures

Earlier Tuesday the scientific world was treated to exciting, fresh footage from an exploratory research survey that took place in Antarctica.

The research team, headed by Dr. Martin Riddle, was a part of an international effort to map life on the bottom surface of the Antarctic Ocean. Specifically, there is concern among scientists about increased ocean acidification and degradation that process can have upon coral gardens.

Breaking Video - Many Mysterious, New Benthic Species Discovered in Antarctic Ocean
(Article continues after video)

The thought is that as ocean acidity increases, such significant changes may occur that the calcium-carbonate skeletons of coral regions can suffer degradation and animals can experience problems with growth, thus causing problems with life-cycles and population dynamics. If this does occur, it will cause notable and perhaps disastrous cascading effects for oceanic flora and fauna.

Exploring the Depths

With that in mind, the research team took off to begin a mission that involved 20 days of sampling, to initially perform a comprehensive ‘census of marine life’. The data collected in this short period of time, mainly in the form of video and collected samples, has left many excited. As for the scientists on the excursion: “We were baffled.”

The first amazing footage collected by the scientists, as seen in the included video above, came from catching and documenting Giant Sea Spiders on film. The impressive Antarctic sea spiders, which may look a bit menacing, exceed the size of a very large dinner plate.

You will notice the spiders have a long, straw-like tube on the body. This is called a ‘proboscis’ (think like a nose hose) but instead of breathing, is used to ’suck’ (actually create vacuum) its prey dry, hence the “vampire” portion accredited to some sea spiders. To get an idea of how this works, it is currently the same thing Heather Mills is trying to do to good Sir Paul McCartney.

Dr. Riddle notes that of all the things he observed on the excursion, the most notable aspect of these benthic -or bottom dwelling- animals are their diverse and divergent appearance, along with adaptations, due to different evolutionary pressures. Some of these animals were found beyond depths of 6,500 feet (over 1 mile) from the ocean’s surface.

Within these benthic, Antarctic animals, an impressive phenomena of particular interest involves the prevalence of gigantism. This genetic condition is something occasionally seen within land animals, even within humans. For some reason it seems to be more common in the deep ocean, even warranting special classification as deep-sea gigantism. One example as noted occurs with giant sea spiders. Another stems from another new discovery of this mission, really big tunicates.

The ‘gardens’ of plankton-eating tunicates seemed to have an average height of around 3 feet tall! Resembling in part something you may see from Mario’s Mushroom kingdom, these impressive animals have bodies that are very slender and of glass-like composition.

There were many other impressive animals discovered, including giant sea worms (more responsive than one may expect, from personal experience) and numerous samples are being sent out worldwide for proper assay and analysis of dna and tissue sampling. The follow-up reports to these discoveries will be quite interesting.

To Seek Out New Life and New Civiliations

The old matra from Star Trek, famously delivered by all Enterprise captains, is actually an important take home message that we should get from this excursion. In our hussle and bussle lives of impressive technology in communications and hopes of exploration off this planet, it’s easy to overlook what we have here.

Over the past 20 days, we have come across a group of animals rich in diversity, many of which previously unknown to humanity. Their underlying secrets and course of evolution will be something that researchers will study from years to come. As with all life on Earth, there is much that we can learn from them. And there they have been, all along, on our planet.

It’s important to remember that this survey was prompted due to concerns about oceanic acidification. Fortunately in our census of marine life, we were able to find some quite frankly beautiful new discoveries and will be able to see if changes within the ocean, their home, is causing any harm to these forms of life.

While it’s important to always look skyward and plan for hope of the future, it’s equally as important to enjoy, preserve and discover what we figuratively have at our fingertips. That’s my sciencey “enjoy the marvel of nature, evolution” and preserve it point of the day.

To wrap up this week in science, here is a recap of one of our photo galleries of some impressive and unusual animals for you. Enjoy.

Strange and Wonderful Animals Gallery

Share this Image Gallery on your Wordpress, Blogger, Myspace and more. Copy and post code below.

<style type=”text/css”>#picstyle {width:520px;padding:5px 5px 10px 5px;height:400px;overflow:auto;}#picstyle img {width:160px;height:140px;border:1px solid #000000;margin:5px 0px 5px 5px;float:left;}</style><br><br><div id=”picstyle”><b>Top 20 - 5</b><br><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125326/P_Evil_Overlord_of_The_Mantids”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/66485_cc32_vwe76bc469-e9af-435c-85d2-9ca54b72a54c.jpg” title=”Evil Mantid Overlord” alt=”Mantid”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125262/P_The_Proboscis_Monkey”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/proboscis%20monkey31e7ae03-aa2e-4375-9010-b46ab893cc93.JPG” title=”The Accounting Proboscis Monkey” alt=”Proboscis Monkey”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125267/P_The_Funny_Looking_Chimaera_Pup”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/chimaera_pupa4e9cea5-cd36-44aa-a1e6-9409aba7487b.jpg” title=”Nose-y Chimaera Pup” alt=”Nose-yChimaera Pup”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125328/P_High_Quality_And_See_Through”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/66426_cc5_vw946fdd9a-2e61-4df5-9641-5141854972e7.jpg” title=”Take Me To Your Leader” alt=”Take Me To Your Leader”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/123273/P_Ugly_Water_Dwellers_Gallery_7″><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/4c3b773c6-81f6-4cd1-be9d-ecb2e3d5c776.jpg” title=”Ancient Japanese Shark” alt=”Ancient Japanese Shark”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125327/P_Every_Species_Has_A_Victory_Pose”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/66479_cc28_vw50414ffd-a24e-4c7b-a0ab-4036b526a71a.jpg” title=”Rocky Of The Insects” alt=”Rocky Of The Insects”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/comments/full/103787/This_Week_in_Science_SuperHumans”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/Whippets%20Mysostatin%20Hypertrophy8d817e3f-86d9-41e5-b15e-bea7c069ebb3.jpg” title=”Buff Super Dog, Wendy The Bully Whippet” alt=”Bully Whippet”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125292/P_The_Soft_Shell_Turtle”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/matamata68844f09-8f0e-4e5f-b00d-194ca723608a.jpg” title=”The Soft Shell Turtle” alt=”Soft Shell Turtle”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/123271/P_Ugly_Water_Dwellers_Gallery_5″><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/5f84c9438-9da8-45d4-90f9-acc723d990ee.jpg” title=”WTF A Penis Fish?” alt=”WTF A Penis Fish”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/123942/P_The_Ugliest_Fish_in_The_World”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/Ugly%20Fisha1b0633f-9799-4c09-a2e5-815a4d9b5408.jpg” title=”Ugliest Fish In The World” alt=”Ugliest Fish On Earth”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/123264/P_Ugly_Water_Dwellers_Gallery_1″><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/1ec16d02c-476d-4f8e-be35-705d10b69a03.jpg” title=”I Must Break You” alt=”The I Must Break You Fish”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125275/P_What_s_up_With_This_Animal_s_Nose”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/97187403b543c2afa4b0e39c795e351544dcb5a33856f5-c897-4f73-b899-40c3345de016.jpg” title=”Star Nosed Mole Grosses Out Folks” alt=”Star Nosed Mole”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/123265/P_Ugly_Water_Dwellers_Gallery_2″><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/10f10338e3-26c2-4ff4-a31e-6d0247c527af.jpg” title=”Bob The Blob Fish” alt=”Bob The Blog Fish”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/125278/P_The_Barkeeper_Fish”><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/36d677e91-8c56-42d5-9f24-1222fa45ed1e.jpg” title=”The Barkeeper Fish” alt=”Fish Looks Like Moe”/></a><a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com/viewpicture/124391/P_Crazy_Crawlers_1″><img src=”http://images.shoutwire.com/pic_full/cc198484bdd3-ceb8-4da8-9c58-55bcf178756c.jpg” title=”The Christopher Walken of Mantids” alt=”Mantid Pose”/></a></div>Visit <a href=”http://www.shoutwire.com”>ShoutWire</a> for more news, video and entertainment.

Bonus - Vampire Sea Spiders From Antarctica

When Zero first mentioned hearing about a Vampire Sea Spider from the cold, lonely grips of Antarctica, I called bullocks. Surely, such an animal that was rumored to suck its prey dry had to be a Hollywood legend or mean old woman on her 4th husband.

As it turns out, they are a real and have scientists totally baffled. Some these ’spiders’ manage to even get a leg span of 70-centimeters, giving a resemblance closer to a wiry gold-digger and divorce lawyer mixed into one.

---

This gallery is a sample of what we hope to do more of in 2008. If you have images you’d like to store or share, please visit the IMAGE SECTION and UPLOAD as many as you like.

If you’d like a gallery made and featured on front page, simply swing by your forums to let us know.